REFLECTIONS ON OUR BIRTHPLACE


We emerged from the sea, some of our relations remained within its depths. Others abandoned the land and sought refuge within the tides and waves. I feel a special kinship with one of them. Perhaps that is why I dream of swiming with the dolphins and have chosen it for my Guardian Totem.

Yet I am a creature of the earth and shall offer these few reflections on what my home means to me.

This small blue disk swimming among the stars in a galactic sea, is worthy of our reverence, our care and our respect.

It is home to tall redwoods, creeping mosses, sparklng waters, sky kissing meadow larks and more varieties of life than I can imagine or recount.

Once it was home to shaggy herds of bison, prides of lions and the cod fisheries of Newfoundland. They are nearly gone, victims to trophy hunters, factory ships and civilization.

The earth is a matrix for spiritual growth, a womb for our souls and the taskmaster for our civilizations.

This taskmaster demands self-discipline, restraint and sacrifice.Otherwise we will be living in cities choked by polluted air, surrounded by a landscape denuded of wild life, never to see dolphins cavorting in the surf , hear the song of the lark or the howl of the wolf. We must learn to live within nature's boundaries and curb our natural tendency to consider our needs, our wants and our desires before all else.

What does this mean? Each of us must decide how to walk upon the earth. However I believe three human assumptions regarding our 'Rights' must be eliminated,.

One of my fellow USC members penned the following, I don't believe I could do any better.

1-The “right” of unrestrained thinking: Because, as individuals, and groups we may think and believe what we will, Nature (sooner or later) demands that we continually test our best thoughts by both individual and social experience.

2-The “right” of unrestrained breeding: Because, as individuals and groups we may breed indiscriminately, - Nature (sooner or later) demands that we ultimately live within the limitations of our material and social environments.

3-The “right” of unrestrained owning, and controlling: Because, both as individuals and groups we are limited by our mortality, (sooner or later) we are forced by Nature to surrender our individual and corporate goods and services to other (we hope more capable) heads and hands.

Human institutions, whether familial, ecclesiastical, or governmental are limited by these inexorable demands of Nature;- and we humans had better restrain our impulses to act willy-nilly upon these false assumptions, - and set about seriously to order our individual and social behavior by accepting responsibility for our thoughts, breeding habits, and economic circumstances!
By Dr. A. Vaughan Abercrombie, revaber@excite.com,

I do hope you peruse the following pages. They contain a selection from the oldest Hindu Veda, a magnificent poem of loss & regret, and the Preamble of The Earth Charter, one of the most thoughtful perspectives on the world I have ever read..

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